


Coming Out is Hard to Do

by PoemJunkie



Series: Hard to Do [1]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Coming Out, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 02:54:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1534961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoemJunkie/pseuds/PoemJunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey Milkovich faces the inevitable confrontations with the clan Milkovich over his sexual orientation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Out is Hard to Do

JOEY

With Terry back in the can, it had pretty much been Mickey and Mandy and their respective relationship clusterfucks at the Milkovich house. Mandy had her piece of shit abusive asshole ensconced in her bedroom, whom Mickey was quietly contemplating poisoning. Mickey had Ian in his bedroom in a full depressive episode, and Svetlana and her blonde dyke girlfriend had moved into Terry’s room with the baby.

The remaining Milkovich brothers had fucked off to parts unknown, which wasn’t that unusual. No one actually wanted to be around their shithole of a house, even though it was halfway bearable with Terry gone, really. Most of them had spent long stretches at a time staying over at a friend’s or crashing with their girlfriend’s over the years that his brother’s absences barely registered as something to note. The only person he kept track of in this fucking awful family was Mandy, and she was being a total shithead about the Kenyatta thing.

So Mickey’s not really expecting it, when he’s out in the yard, chainsmoking himself sick over what to do with Ian, and he hears someone scream his name in an all-righteous fury.

He’s such a dumbass, he actually turns toward the sound with the intention of seeing what the fuck it is, rather than automatically going for one of the weapons around the yard like an actual smart person.

Mickey hasn’t seen his brother Joey in something like two months, and he doesn’t really SEE him this time, either, just the blur of his fist as he come reaming towards him, screaming about faggots.

Mickey dodges the first blow, mostly out of instinct, and spits his cigarette into the grass, and meets Joey’s next punch with a cross of his own. It’s probably only a lucky hit – Joey’s not actually used to faggots hitting back, despite having fought seriously with Mickey half a dozen times throughout their childhood – but it lands right on his mouth, and leaves Joey spitting blood.

From there, it’s just a matter of the two of them whaling on each other, with Joey screaming, “Faggot! Fucking queer!” as he throws punches. And fuck, if the entire neighborhood hadn’t heard about his spectacular coming out at Yevgeny’s christening party, they’re not going to stay ignorant now. “Uncle Johnny told me what you did, you fucking shirt-lifter! You got dad thrown back in prison you pole-smoking cunt!”

Joey gets a hold of Mickey’s arms and they grapple with each other, going to the ground and kicking up dust among the dead grass in the yard.

“Fuck you! Fuck you!” Mickey screams back. “I’m glad he’s back in jail! I’m glad! He’s a fucking cunt! He can rot there for all I care!”

Joey doesn’t like that at all, his face going almost purple with rage under his mop of blond curls. Mickey has never, not ever, seen his brother this fucking enraged. Usually, he’s high as fuck and mellow with it. With a surge of strength Mickey wouldn’t have guessed his brother had in his strung-out body, Joey heaved up and brought Mickey down underneath him, pinning him with his legs as he cocked back his fist and started whaling on Mickey’s face.

Mickey doesn’t just take it, twisting and snarling, using his arms to try to get at Joey’s soft points, grabbing for his dick, his throat, whatever he can reach, spitting blood and swearing.

But it’s not Mickey that puts an end to it. It’s Svetlana, bringing a wooden baseball bat probably left over from Mickey’s Little League days down on Joey’s back. Svetlana’s not a pussy, either. She does that shit with intent.

Joey folds like a house of cards, screaming. Mickey doesn’t let the opportunity go to waste, and uses his brother’s distraction to push him back and slam his knee hard into his groin, and scrambling up into a more defensible position.

“You piece of shit,” Joey moans, trying to get up onto one knee. Before he can manage it, though, a sound familiar to them all stops all of them in their tracks: The cock of a shotgun. On the porch is Mandy, looking hard and pissed as fuck. She’s holding one of their guns, aimed and ready, safety off.

“You need to get the fuck out of here, Joey,” Mandy says, completely calm, sighting down the barrel with her blackened eye. “No one has time for your fucking bullshit right now.”

A smart man would be running, but “smart” was never one of the many fine qualities of the Milkovich clan. Plus, a man with crushed nuts isn’t going to be in a hurry to run anywhere fast.

“You got women doing your fighting now, Mickey?” Joey gasps, cupping his crotch protectively. “You such a pussy you can’t fight your own fucking battles? Guess you can’t really call you a man, though, taking it up the ass, you fucking pillow biter.”

Mickey just laughs. He wonders why everyone and their mother equates being fucked with being effeminate. That shit can hurt like a motherfucker. “Yeah, I take it up the ass, Joey. And guess what? You couldn’t handle that shit, you fucking fairy.”

Joey’s face twists in hatred, and Mickey’s guts twist just a little, because his brothers have always had his back before, always been willing to back his play, and yeah, it hurts just a little to know that one little change and suddenly they’re on opposite sides of the game.

Joey makes a move like he’s going to go after Mickey again, kneed balls or not, when a shot rings out and dust flies up not a foot in front of Joey, who falls back on his ass with an undignified yelp. “Fuck, Mandy, you could have shot me!” he shouts at the porch, looking genuinely betrayed.

Mandy ejects the used shell with efficiency, eyes never leaving Joey. The message was clear. She could have. She didn’t. Next time, she might.

“All right,” Joey says, looking between Mandy on the porch, Mickey standing above him, bleeding from his head again, (fuck, he hadn’t even healed from the Alibi fight yet, mother fucker) and Svetlana with the bat. He seems to be weighing in his head the likelihood of someone calling the cops about the gunfire. “Fine.”

Joey drags himself up, showing his hands. His eyes don’t show any sign of softening. “I’ll go. But you know this isn’t over Mickey. You can’t disgrace the family like this and expect everything to be fine.”

Mickey watches Joey limp out of the yard and down the street.

He’d never expected everything to be fine. He pretty much expected exactly what he’d gotten.

 

TONY

Tony is two years older and a thousand times dumber than Mickey, who’s hardly a Rhodes scholar himself. He has never had an original thought in his head, and is not actually all that prone to violence, for a Milkovich. He walks up to Mickey on the street, when his face still feels like hamburger and Mickey just sighs and stubs out his cigarette on his shoe, because this was always going to happen eventually.

“Joey says you’re a faggot,” Tony says.

“Joey’s a faggot,” Mickey replies automatically. Then he pauses, because he made a fucking decision and he’s not the kind of pussy that backs out of something once a decision is made. “But yeah, I’m a faggot.”

Tony looks distressed. He’s always been a follower, trailing after Mickey or Joey or both. The three of them and Mandy were born right in a line, barely a year between any of them, and they ran together like a pack of dogs for years. Tony had always been an enforcer, good for backup and especially for looking intimidating as fuck, but was actually the kind of guy that needed his hand held through every fucking motion or he got confused as to what he was supposed to be doing.

“Dad says faggots burn in hell. He says we gotta beat fags straight for their own good.” Tony’s fists clench and unclench at his sides.

Mickey watches his brother’s fists and sucks thoughtfully at his teeth. Tony might be the only one of his brothers stupid enough to try to beat the shit out of him for Mickey’s own good. Tony’s the biggest of his brothers, fat like it should be impossible to get on how little food they had growing up, tall and broad across the shoulders. Mickey could still take him, weaponless, because Tony’s slow as shit in more than one way, and never remembers to protect his vulnerable spots.

“Dad’s not here. You gonna try it, Tony?” Mickey asks, cocking his head in a challenge, keeping his arms loose by his sides. “’Cause I gotta tell you. Dad already tried. And Joey already tried. And guess what?” Mickey indicated down his body with a sweeping gesture. “Still a faggot.”

Tony chews on his thumbnail, his brows creasing as he tries to work out what to make of that information. Joey always used to get impatient with how long it took Tony to work through things, and he was usually just as quick as Terry to try to beat a faster answer out of him. Mickey was a little more patient, but only marginally.

“Maybe you just gotta fuck a girl?” he asks, looking at Mickey hopefully. “Maybe you could learn to like it?”

Mickey knows that Tony isn’t his father. Knows that even if he tried, he couldn’t beat Mickey to the point where he could call in a prostitute to fuck Mickey straight, and Mickey would let that happen. Knows that Ian is at home, where no one can point a gun at him and threaten him to make Mickey do anything. It doesn’t matter. He still sees red.

“I’m never fucking a woman again,” he says shortly. “Not ever. Dad can’t make me do it, and you certainly can’t, tough guy, so if you want to try to beat the faggot out of me, you can God damn try.”

“But what about your wife?” Tony asks. “Don’t you love her?”

“What fucking universe do you live in, Tony?” Mickey replies. “I didn’t want to marry that bitch. I don’t even know if the kid’s mine.” Okay, so he and Svetlana were practically getting along these days, and the kid was mostly tolerable, but theirs was an arrangement of convenience and mutual barely-there amicability. “No. I don’t love her. I fucking love Ian Gallagher.”

Jesus, he hadn’t meant to say THAT.

The crease in Tony’s eyebrows is gaining folds by the second as he tries to puzzle this out.

“Look,” Mickey interrupts, impatient, “are we gonna fight, or not, because I have places to be.”

Tony looks at him for a long time, before announcing, “I gotta think,” and turning and wandering off, chewing on his thumbnail. Mickey shrugs, digging in his shirt pocket for a fresh smoke and a light. Well, that hadn’t gone swimmingly, but it certainly beat his last encounter with a member of the Milkovich family, so Mickey was going to count it as a win and get the fuck on with his day.

 

IGGY

When Mickey gets a letter from Iggy, who’s in the midst of doing a stint for possession with intent, he doesn’t really know what to expect. Whatever it was he was expecting, it’s not what he gets when he opens the creased envelope and reads the chicken-scratch scrawl.

Little bro,

Dad’s back in and he says you’re gay now. I didn’t believe it at first, but Joey came to visit and he said that you told the whole fucking Alibi you were gay and then were screaming about sucking dick while humping a cop car or some shit. Aren’t you married?

Anyway, Dad’s pissed as hell, so watch your fucking back or you’re going to get shanked by somebody that owes him a favor.

My commissary’s running low, could you put something in it for smokes? They’re good trade in here and I need to stay on the good side of the Aryans cause unlike some people in this fucking family I don’t enjoy it up the ass.

I should be getting out again in four months or so, so tell Carlotta to wait for me. She don’t need to be such a ho she can’t wait four months. And if she don’t wait for me, have Mandy kneecap that bitch.

But seriously, watch your fucking back.

Iggy

Mickey stares in puzzlement at the letter, trying to decipher if there is some hidden meaning behind Iggy’s truly awful handwriting. He turns it over and looks at the opposite side, but it’s just a blank piece of notebook paper.

It’s hardly a ringing endorsement of support, but coming from a Milkovich, it might as well be.

Mickey puts down Iggy’s letter and goes to the kitchen to fill a glass of juice. He puts a bendy straw in it and heads to the bedroom, where Ian is still cocooned. Mickey sits on the bed next to him and runs his hand through Ian’s hair. He holds the straw up to Ian’s mouth.

“Drink a bit for me, huh, babe?” he murmurs, and feels a little thrill of triumph when Ian’s mouth closes over the straw and he sucks down some of the juice. Mickey continues to stroke his hair as Ian sips. “Maybe some food later, yeah?” he murmurs, trying to keep the good momentum going. Ian makes a little noise that may or may not be assent.

Ian finishes over half the juice. It’s not much. Maybe Iggy expressing the desire not to see Mickey stabbed in the fucking back isn’t much either. Mickey’s taking his victories where he can right now.

“I’ll get you some toast, okay?” Mickey says, rubbing his hand over Ian’s arms. Ian doesn’t tell him to fuck off, so Mickey sets the glass on the table in case Ian gets motivated enough to drink it and heads to the kitchen.

Mandy’s making a sandwich, probably for her douchebag, and Mickey steals the bag of bread from her and digs out two slices.

“Wanna throw in with me for Iggy’s commissary account?” he asks her.

She looks at him, spreading mayonnaise on the bread. She’s probably seen that he’d gotten a letter from Iggy. “Sure. Just nothing for Terry, right?”

“Do I look fucking stupid to you?”

 

JAMIE

This time, Mickey sees it coming halfway down the block.

Jamie is the oldest Milkovich, and is about the same size as Tony, built big and broad and strong. He’s easily twice Mickey’s size, and when he sees the his older brother walking down the street in his direction, Mickey decides “fuck it,” and just turns in the opposite direction. Maybe he’ll be lucky and Jamie just won’t notice him.

Of course that’s bullshit, because no Milkovich ever got lucky in anything.

“Hey there, cock gobbler!” Jamie’s voice calls down the street. “Mick! Wait up you little fairy!”

Mickey stops and wipes his hand over his mouth. A Milkovich doesn’t run from a fight. He turns and faces Jamie, coming toward him with Tony on his tail. A two-for-one beating this time. How convenient. Maybe Jamie’ll do what Iggy warned him about and skip the beating and go straight for a switchblade.

“Well, maybe you actually do have some balls after all,” Jamie drawls, coming up to poke a finger into Mickey’s chest hard enough that Mickey rocks back on his heels. Mickey stands his ground though, pursing his lips tightly and trying to think of ways that this could end without him in traction. Tony shifts behind Jamie, nervous and not up to confrontation, as always.

Mickey scratches idly at his jaw and figures maybe he should start going out with a pistol from now on. “What’s your beef, Jamie?”

Jamie sneers. “You got your little bum buddy shacked up in Daddy’s house, is my beef, Mickey. You think that shit is okay?”

“Seeing as it’s me and Mandy paying the bills on that house, and you ain’t stepped foot in it in a year, I don’t see why what we do in it has shit to do with you,” Mickey replies, angling his arms out from his body, ready for the inevitable fight.

“You always did have too big a mouth, Mickey,” Jamie says. “Don’t know why you open it when it’s a check your short ass can’t cash. You know you gotta take a beating for this, right?”

Mickey’s face and ribs haven’t recovered either from the beating Terry gave him nor the one Joey laid down, so he feels rather justifiably that any beatings he’s deserved have already been meted out. He doesn’t say that, though. Instead, he decides that this time, he’s going to throw the first punch.

He clocks Jamie in the temple, and Jamie immediately comes back with a fist roughly the size of Mickey’s head, except that it never reaches Mickey. Because Tony leaps into the fray, and instead of helping beat on Mickey, holds onto Jamie’s best arm.

Which is pretty stunning from Mickey’s perspective, but hey, he’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he just goes with it.

Two Milkovich brothers against one was always going to be a brutal beatdown, and if Mickey couldn’t have guessed that at the end, it would be Jamie groaning on the pavement, he can’t be blamed for not seeing it coming. He and Tony high-tail it before someone calls the cops (not likely, not for a Milkovich) and Mickey feels almost like a kid again, running with Tony and Mandy and Joey.

“I’ve been reading,” says Tony when they’re far enough away to slow down.

Mickey stops and offers Tony a cigarette. “I didn’t know you read,” he offers after a moment, because until that moment, he could be forgiven for not being entirely sure that Tony COULD read.

“I asked for some stuff at the clinic,” Tony says slowly. “And basically you can’t help it right? You were born gay?”

Mickey thinks of being ten and fantasizing about Steven Segal. “Yeah, pretty much,” he admits.

Tony nods like that settles things. “I’m not going to beat you for something you can’t help,” he mumbles. “You never beat me for stuff like that.”

For stuff like being stupid, thinks Mickey, since Joey and Terry and Jamie never saw fault with something like that. But he doesn’t say it.

“And I figure,” says Tony, “I figure that if I’m nice to you, you’ll let me watch your kid sometime. I like kids.”

Mickey shrugs. Better than him having to do it. “Yeah, man. Anytime.”

Tony smiles at him, and Mickey smiles back.

 

MANDY

Mickey is sore as fuck and wrung out when he climbs into bed with Ian that night. Ian, who doesn’t even look at him, who pulls his blanket up tight around his ears like a shield blocking out the world. Fiona swears eventually he’ll break out of it, and until then it’s just a matter of attempting to keep him hydrated, and, if at all possible, fed. Neither seems to be going well.

Mickey rubs his eyes tiredly, doggedly ignoring the fact that they’re a little wet. There is a lot of shit he could ignore if Ian were well enough to face it with him. As it is, it’s just one more shitstorm Mickey has to weather.

He leaves Ian his own blanket, because Ian doesn’t always like to be touched like this, and curls in on his own side of the bed, facing Ian’s back. When Ian’s well, usually he curls around Mickey, covering him with his taller body, making Mickey feel safe. Now he just feels fucking alone.

Mickey breathes a little wetly, trying to get himself under control, because the very last thing that needs to happen here is for there to be two depressed fucks in this bed. But maybe he’ll allow himself this one moment, before he has to get up and face all of this shit again tomorrow, with the knowledge that yeah, Ian will probably still be in bed with no signs of getting up.

He hears the door creak open, and soft padding footsteps behind him. He doesn’t move, and closes his eyes, hoping to hide any tell-tale moisture from Mandy, because that’s who it must be. The bed dips as she sits down, and she gives him an insistent shove closer to Ian as she swings her legs onto the bed and crowds next to him, fitting along his back like Ian used to. She wraps her arm around his middle and buries her face in his neck. Her face feels hot where her bruises touch his skin.

It’s not Ian. She’s too small. It doesn’t feel so secure as it does when it’s Ian. But he’s still fucking grateful, even though he will never, ever say that shit out loud.

“I’m only going to say this the once,” Mandy says, “and I know we don’t talk about it, but I want to say it at least the once. I’m sorry the world is full of shitheads. I’m sorry most of our family is made up of shitheads. But I don’t care. I don’t care who you fuck. And if you had to fuck someone, Ian’s a pretty good one.”

Mickey looks at Ian’s back, wonders if he’s even awake to hear this, if he has an opinion, if he fucking cares at all.

“Fuck them all, Mickey. Fuck Terry first, and Joey second, and the rest of them right in a fucking row. You got me, and Ian, and even your bitch wife and the kid. We’re still family.”

She doesn’t say I love you, for which Mickey is grateful, because that really would be gay as shit. Plus he’s feeling weak at the moment and he might even feel compelled to say it back, and there’s probably no recovering from that, as far as reputations go.

Mandy falls silent behind him, squeezing his forearm with her hand, and when Mickey looks down at it, he can see the imprint of fingers bruising her wrist. Mickey’s not a big guy, he knows he’s short, but even his hands could probably circle Mandy’s wrists. They look fucking fragile.

“You’re one of the good ones, Mick,” Mandy says. She says it like she’s not aware that of the Milkovich family, she’s the best of them all.

Mickey covers her hand with his. Mandy is really the only one in his family he gives an actual shit about. And maybe Mandy doesn’t think that she deserves Lip Gallagher (bullshit, Mickey thinks vindictively, bull-fucking-shit), but she certainly doesn’t deserve fucking Kenyatta. So maybe tomorrow, despite the fact that Mandy has told him fifty times to stay the fuck out of it, and despite the fact that Kenyatta is built like a brick shithouse and just about twice Mickey’s size, he’ll get out Svetlana’s baseball bat and take that fucker out at the knees.

He squeezes Mandy’s hand a little harder, the U-UP on his fingers standing out a little more. Maybe his family’s a little different now. But Mandy was there first and now and always, and no one messes with his little sister.

He holds Mandy’s hand with one of his, and the other reaches out to tentatively rub Ian’s arm. Ian doesn’t turn into Mickey’s waiting embrace or anything, but he also doesn’t shrug off Mickey’s arm, which is progress, or something. Mickey closes his eyes, bracketed by family, biological and chosen, Mandy and Ian both as safe as he can make them in the moment. He tries to sleep.

There are battles to fight, tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted to my Tumblr, which is here: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/poemjunkie. It was written for a fic prompt asking for Mickey's brother's reactions to Mickey coming out, which got a little away from me.


End file.
